The cousins I have mentioned were not with the Merediths on their first arrival. There had been some doubt of finding a house large enough to take the whole party in, so Bessie and Hugh had waited at their own home in the country in England in a state of frantic anxiety, till one fine day came a letter from their aunt with the delightful news that the children might be despatched as soon as they could be got ready.
Bessie and Hugh had never paid a visit to France before; so the two new-comers had plenty of "guides" to explain everything to them, and show them the "lions" of Sablons-sur-mer. Only one condition was made by Lilian, the eldest and nearly "grown up" Meredith girl. Bessie and Hugh must manage not to seem like English tourists "gaping about with guide-books in their hands, and looking as if they had never been out of an English country village."
"But we scarcely ever have been," said Bessie; "at least, only when we go to grandmamma's at Cheltenham, and Hugh was once three days in London."
"That doesn't matter," said Miss Meredith; "you needn't look like some of the English people one sees over here. I feel quite ashamed sometimes to own them for my country people."
Bessie was too much in awe of her big cousin to ask her to explain more exactly what it was she was not to do, or to "look." But she resolved to herself to be on her very best behaviour, and Madge and Letty assured her it would be "all right"—she needn't talk French when there was any one who "mattered" to hear, and she needn't seem as if things were strange to her, that was what Lilian minded.
"Mayn't I look in at the shop-windows, even?" asked Bessie, rather dolefully.
Shop-windows were very delightful and charming to the little country cousin.
"Of course you may. Every body does," said Letty; "especially at the bazaar. It's not windows; it's all open, you know, like stalls at a market," explained Madge; "it's a regular bazaar. Not look at it!—why it's made to be looked at. And oh; Bessie," Letty went on again, "you will be amused at the big tailor's, or ready-made clothier's, as mamma calls it, at the corner of the arcade. It's something like Madame Tussaud's—such a lot of wax dummies at the door. And they change their clothes every few days. Some of them are quite big, like men; and some little boys. They've got one now which they think is dressed like an English sailor-suit boy—you never saw such a costume! And there's a man in a red coat—our boys say he is meant to be an English 'milord' dressed for 'the hunt.'"
